Why Not Smile
by Grevola
Summary: Semi-Companion but independant fic to A Way To Make You Smile. 1+2. Duo's got to get Heero out of his depression before someone is hurt


Disclamer: I have no money, what anime fan does? If I had money, I would own Gundam Wing, so either way sueing me is pointless. Oh, and the song belongs to R.E.M. If I were R.E.M. I would have money, and then I would own Gundam Wing, so there!  
  
  
  
Why not smile? or Heero's Confession  
  
  
  
/the concrete broke your fall  
  
to hear you speak of it/  
  
"I can't believe this guy. He just jumped out of the sixth floor window of a hospital! It wouldn't have bothered me nearly so much if he'd bothered to open the parachute I gave him when it would have done some good!  
  
This guy, this Superman, just learned an important law of the world: concrete is unforgiving. You see that's what he hit, concrete. He hit and rolled, but that doesn't change the fact that he jumped out of a six story building and landed on the ground. According to the laws of the world he should be dead. That or really need that hospital he just checked out of. But as it stands, he doesn't seem to agree. He stands up so very calmly, limps a bit, and then sets his own broken bones!  
  
The whole thing is made more disturbing by the fact that he doesn't say a thing about it. A grunt when he hit the ground and when he set his leg, but nothing else. Nothing. No 'Shit that hurts.' or 'Damnit!' or anything else that you might say when you've just jumped out of a building. What a really strange guy."  
  
/I'd have done anything  
  
I would do anything  
  
I feel like a cartoon brick wall  
  
to hear you speak of it/  
  
I smile slightly as I re-read what I'd written after that interesting day at the hospital. It's been a while since then, the war is over. But you know, he never did speak about that day. Not till just recently any way. He's been doing suicidal stuff again, so I came down from L2 to visit him. He and I are graciously being allowed to stay at a small cottage, curtesy of Quatre. He really wanted to be able to help Heero more, but I'm afraid that he's completely shut off to the others.  
  
I don't know why he's opened up, even this little bit, to me. It's not his style to be this way, generally he's cut off from the whole of the world around him. I admit that I was closer to him than any of the other pilots, but sometimes I feel like I'm keeping him away from the others, like I'm some sort of barrier between him and the world. I keep getting this feeling from him that when he wants to get through me to the others, he'll go crashing through and leave a Heero shaped hole in me.  
  
He's back. He was outside doing something in the garden. He may or may not know it but I keep a close eye on him. I want to make sure that he doesn't hurt himself, mostly because I think he might. The problems really became apparent after Relena got married to this former member of the Romafeller Foundation. The guy's rich, handsome and an excellent choice politically, but he's been a total jerk to Heero.  
  
Check that, he's been a total jerk to all of the ex-Gundam pilots except Quatre. It's obvious that he holds a grudge against us, the only reason he tolerates Quatre is because he doesn't know about his work during the war. You see Quatre has to live his life in the lime light so to speak, so the story goes that his family sent him into hiding with the Maguanocs when things got heated up.  
  
Either way this guy does everything in his power to make Heero's life hell. Relena offered Heero a position as her body guard out of pity when she found that he had no work and no legal money after the war. Her husband made sure that he's being paid as little as possible, given as few benefits as possible, and always getting harassed a work. I think he's jealous.  
  
What this guy is like doesn't matter, what matters is that he pushed Heero too far. My friend began going out late, looking for trouble, looking for fights and looking for some way to get himself killed. Wufei, the only one of us that saw Heero on a regular basis, noticed the pattern of reckless driving, brawling and hanging out in the slums of town for what it was and called in help.  
  
He and Trowa tried to talk to Heero, but they couldn't seem to get through to him. Quatre managed to tell us that he was very depressed and feeling both guilty and directionless, but he couldn't get Heero to open up either so he called me.  
  
He was the only one of the others who knew that I had a thing for Heero during our fighting. How was I supposed to hide it? Quatre's an empath for heaven's sake.  
  
I don't know if I still have feelings for him, I care deeply about him, but right now he needs a friend more than anything else.  
  
/you've been so sad  
  
it makes me worry  
  
why not smile?  
  
you've been sad for a while.  
  
why not smile?/  
  
He walks into the room and just looks at me. He doesn't even glare, just looks and then he turns away and sits down onto the sofa. He's so sad looking, really. His face doesn't show any emotion, but his shoulders are slightly slumped and his movements are slow. What really gets to me is the lost look in his eyes, so alone and sad.  
  
He doesn't talk much, and when he does it's almost always about the various times that he tried to get himself killed. He hasn't talked about that day at the hospital though, I wonder if he ever will... I want him to, is some twisted way. I want him to tell me what was running through his head that day when he tried to die so that I can tell him what was running through mine when I wanted him to live.  
  
He turns away from me and looks out the window as he begins speaking. "Duo. What should I do?"  
  
I blink, Heero Yuy is asking me for advice?! What a novelty! I'm not sure exactly what he wants, what he needs to hear, so I give him the same advice I give my self when I don't know what to do. "Smile." I say.  
  
He doesn't turn to face me, but his eyes widen ever so slightly, proof that he heard me. "Why?" He asks softly.  
  
"Why not?" I counter.  
  
"Smiling is something people do when they are happy." He responded.  
  
I give him a grin of my own. "Yes, it is. Smiling is an natural expression of happiness, so why not smile?"  
  
"Because..." He pauses, but I know that I'm going to get him to talk about it now. "Because... I want to die."  
  
"Why?" I ask softly, taking a seat next to him on the couch.  
  
He doesn't answer right away, but he does turn his head toward me, not looking at me but facing me more. "Because I am a soldier. This is a time of peace, and I am no longer needed. I am like the other weapons that were destroyed after the war. It's time for me to be removed as well."  
  
I smile sadly at him. Smiling is my reaction to just about anything. I can be in absolutely any emotional state and smile, but that's not the way that Heero should be. He needs a genuine, happy smile. Or at least a good imitation.  
  
But he is opening up more. He is admitting to me that he has a problem, so maybe I can fix it. Does he have any idea how long I've waited to hear him talk like this? To hear him admit his weaknesses and to help him get over them? I doubt it, he probably thinks that I'm laughing at him.  
  
"Heero, look at me." I say finally. He needs to see my eyes for this. He knows that I don't lie, but I want him to have absolutely no doubt about what I am about to say.  
  
He turns his head and looks at me, but he won't meet my eyes. I take a risk and tilt his head up to face me. He grabs my wrist, but makes no move to break it or remove my hand. Now his deep blue orbs are gazing into mine, he is so very alone and lost.  
  
"Heero." I put my other hand on his shoulder, "You. Are. A. Human. You. Are. Needed." I shake him gently with each word, trying to drive them home, into his heart and brain alike.  
  
He looks at me for a moment longer before jerking his face out of my grasp and looking away. "Sure." He says, his voice cold and full of self loathing, "Sure I'm needed. I'm needed to follow Relena around like a dog. I'm needed to cause trouble. I'm needed to drag you away from you work and happiness to watch me wallow in self pity. I am not needed Duo. Not by anyone." He turns away from me, but I refuse to let go of his shoulder.  
  
"You're wrong." I said. "You didn't let me finish." I move to sit on the coffee table in front of him, between him and the window so he has to face me now. I put one hand on each side of his head and force him to look at me. He's like a small child, really, scared and hurt and unhappy. "You are wanted." I say each word slowly and clearly so that there can be no mistaking what I am saying. "I want you to be here, but not like this. I want you to be happy. I want you to live, Heero Yuy. Can you do that?"  
  
He looks into my eyes for a long time, his have become unreadable. I want him so desperately to smile, to agree, to yell at me, any reaction is better then this staring contest. Slowly I drop my hands from the sides of his face, resting them on his shoulders, hopping that he'll tell me what I need to hear.  
  
He doesn't say anything for another eternity. Then he shakes his head, slowly back and forth in a negative response. "I'm sorry Duo." He says quietly.  
  
I want to hit him and swear and yell at him until he says yes, but I know that won't work so instead I stand up slowly. My anger dissipates as quickly as it came, leaving me feeling empty. I reach into the back of my jeans where I keep a gun, old habits die hard. "Here you go, Yuy." I say as I hand it to him. "I can't stop you, but I won't help you any more than this."  
  
He holds the gun dumbly in one hand, staring at it before he looks up at me with an unguarded expression of bewilderment. "You're giving me you're permission?" He asks.  
  
This time I can't control my answer, I don't even try. "My permission?!" I yell. "My permission?! What the hell do you need my permission for? I can't stop you if you want to die. It's not my decision, not my life. But I'll tell you this right now: it will hurt me a great deal if you pull that trigger. So no, I'm not giving you my permission, but I am saying this: If you're going to get yourself killed, do it by your own hand instead of being reckless and scaring all of us."  
  
/I would do anything  
  
to hear you speak of it.  
  
why not smile?  
  
you've been sad for a while.  
  
you've been sad for a while./  
  
He looks back at the gun for a long moment before he sets it on the coffee table between us. He looks back up at me. "You stopped me before. You're doing it again. Why?"  
  
"What are you talking about, Heero?" I ask in confusion.  
  
"That time, at the hospital... You gave me a parachute. I wasn't going to use it, but you... You told me to. And I did, so I owe you my life. You kept me from self destructing that time. And after that I couldn't kill myself because you had wanted me to live. You still want me to, so I'll have to wait until some one kills me."  
  
I stare at him for a moment. He looks out the window again, almost wistfully as though hoping that some one will just come up and shoot him. I grab his shoulders roughly this time and he looks at me in surprise. "To me it is exactly the same if you kill yourself or get yourself killed. Heero you are, wanted, needed, loved even here and now. So why can't you stay? I want you to stay." I don't know what I'm saying any more, I start babbling, hoping that something will convince him to be happy again, convince him to smile.  
  
"You mean that." It wasn't a question, but I treated it like one any way.  
  
"Every word, Heero. You know I don't lie." I bend my head down near his, our foreheads touching. "Every word."  
  
"You love me?" It's a question now, full of uncertainty and... hope.  
  
I smile, "Yes, I love you." I dismiss the thought of a joke almost before it enters my mind, now is not the time to play the jester.  
  
He looks so lost and scared still. So I do the only thing I seem capable of thinking of at that moment, I kiss him. Nothing passionate or deep, just a simple pressing of my lips against his, a physical sign of my feelings. After a moment I wrap my arms around him and pull him into a tight hug. He relaxes into it surprisingly quickly.  
  
Reluctantly I release him a bit to gauge his reaction. His eyes are misty and I wonder if he is going to cry, I don't think that I could handle it if he did. 'Crying never solves anything,' some one once told me 'it just makes you feel sorry for yourself.'  
  
But Heero didn't cry, instead the corners of his mouth twitched just a bit, then a bit more until a small smile had formed on his lips. I returned it with my own relieved grin. "Now was that so hard?" I ask as I trace his lips with a finger tip.  
  
He catches my hand with his own and holds it immobile as he kisses each finger tip. I chuckle at him. "I love you, Heero Yuy. Now promise me you won't forget it."  
  
His smile broadenes slightly at that and he locks eyes with me. "I love you Duo." He says quietly. "You are the only one who has ever given me back my life."  
  
I didn't understand the last part of what he said until quite a bit latter because he ended his sentence kissing me so thoroughly that I quickly forgot everything else...  
  
/why not smile?/  
  
Author's Note: Well, I think that it is horribly out of character for Heero, but I still think it's a sappy, angsty way for them to get together. Serious change from Workaholics Anon. Not to mention it's an addition to my R.E.M. sonfic collection. This is the second one from the Up CD which has so many great songs... If you want a challange write to me and I'll send you a song then you use it in a fic. Deal? Either way, coments are good food for my muses (and CD player) so send 'em in: mywebjunk@webinbox.com  
  
Later,  
  
~G'Vola 


End file.
